A shareholder told Bezos that he likes Amazon.com’s customer service but that the company has the “worst” investor relations department. He complained that the company has not returned his or his wife’s messages.

“From a shareholder viewpoint, I think you have the worst investor relations department,” the shareholder said.

Bezos exclaimed, “They’re right here!”

The shareholder replied, “I have no experience, I’ve never been able to contact them. . . . When the company is non-responsive, I put them in the class of worst investor relations department. What can you do to fix that?”

Bezos invited him to come up after the meeting.

“I think we have a very good investor relations department. I’m not just saying that because they’re right here,” he said. “They’re very lean. We have a very tiny investor relations department. That’s my point of view, that we should have a very tiny investor relations department.”

Bezos said that during stock low points, he realized that investor relations is “impossible.”

“If the company does a good job for customers and the long term does a good job for shareholders, then that’s the best investor relations,” he said. “That doesn’t mean we don’t want to be courteous. We can’t be so lean that we can’t be courteous.”

Update: 10:45 a.m. The meeting is over and there was no breaking news or announcement. I’ll write up a summary of the meeting and post it shortly.